


reverence/condamnation

by morituritesalutant



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternative Universe - Fantasy, Aramis is 16 and Porthos early 20s, Aramis likes passion--I mean violence, Drugs, F/M, Murder (mentioned), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prostitution (mentioned), Rule 63 (applied to Aramis), Underage sex (not too graphic), Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 10:07:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2187711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morituritesalutant/pseuds/morituritesalutant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She thinks she might have loved him before, but neither of them can recall.<br/>They say that history repeats itself, she couldn't care less. </p><p>Rule 63 Aramis meets Porthos and they find solace in each other, if only that was enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	reverence/condamnation

Aramis tries not to remember, she doesn’t care anyway, but flickers of _before_ appear when she blinks.  
She decides to try not to close her eyes too often.

She gets the job, she serves drinks to strange men with dark motives, who commit sins she doesn’t not know the names of. She will soon enough.

She cleans the floors of the speakeasy, disregards everyone like she disregards herself. _It’s only for a little while_ she tells herself.  
Monsieur Treville hasn’t asked her to dance, doesn’t expect that of her, but she knows that within a year she will join the other women on stage, it's the way it always goes. The boss wouldn’t like it, but he shouldn’t complain, she does what he wants in her own way, it’s the only form of rebellion she has left.   
If she wants to dance, she will dance.

Sometimes she sees the other women take men to the backrooms. She had observed it quietly and had realized Monsieur Treville had lied --of course he had-- when he had sworn this place was like _that._ She had questioned it, but Monsieur Trevile had pretended it was simply another opportunity to make more money, “if you’re interested” he had added.  She isn’t.  
The boss wouldn’t like that either, she had thought, she’s almost tempted purely out of spite. She might have hated him if she had cared at all. She doesn’t.

The first time she had taken someone out from nine hundred yards away the boss told her he had never seen a girl shoot like she could.   
She had been tempted to kick him in the stomach for his patronizing tone alone, but decided not to. After all, he pays her bills and so she had agreed.  
She agrees and agrees, with opinions she doesn’t understand and ideologies she doesn’t believe in, and in the end becomes a pathological liar for a living.

\--  
  
They say that history repeats itself, she couldn't care less.   
  
\--

Soldiers come in often. There is a war going on, one similar to the silent one she’s participating in.   
The women tell her that the stupidest thing you can do is fall in love with a soldier, they are always leaving, never staying.  
She ensures them she has no intention to do so. She doesn’t care about anything, remember? Especially not about boys that have become men through bullet-wounds. _La naïvité de la jeunesse._

The women ignore their own advice as they had ignored their mothers’ before that,  crowding around the soldiers, offering their affections for nothing.  
She can understand, these men in their uniforms are so different from the regular ones that visit. They all look haunted, searching for their lost sanity in the shrill voices and warm bodies of her friends.

One of them watches her, perhaps he’s one of those men that recognizes his mother in Aramis, she doesn’t know, she ignores him instead even though his eyes follow her everywhere. The others treat him with more respect than their officers and she briefly wonders why. She has to remind herself she's leaving soon, it wouldn't matter anyway.  
He hurts a man that has been harassing everyone and he walks away like it was nothing.  She might have kissed him then, but the moment was so short. Her mouth tasted like whiskey, but she doesn’t drink and neither does he. 

\--

She belonged to the wrong side of history, why can’t he understand.

\--

Monsieur Treville is happy with her. Her dancing attracts new costumers, unsure but intrigued by her.   
“It’s because you look like a boy,” the other women tell her. Everyone always wants to understand what they can't explain.   
They are jealous, but tell themselves Aramis will be older soon and her body will change and then she will look like the rest of them and she won’t stand out anymore.  
Aramis knows it isn’t true, but jokingly agrees. Agreeing she does well. Their resentment is charmed away and they treat her like before, she's starting to appreciate their sisterhood, she really shouldn't.

When the soldier comes in again, she decides not to ignore him this time.  She returns his glances, unafraid, and recognition is obvious on his face.   
He says, “I’m sure we’ve met before.”  
She tells him that he’s not very original, like she would fall for that, but indulges him nonetheless.

“Your face,” he whispers and he touches it softly. _It’s been so long_ goes unsaid.  
The other women had assumed, smirking, but she had known what he had meant, she feels something inside her stir and wonders _who’s been taking care of you when I wasn’t around_.  How many lives have they lived past each other unnoticed, unbeknownst.  
She stays silent a little too long and her training returns. She tells him she doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  
He looks hurt and she realizes they are quite similar after all, perhaps he can only tell the truth the way she can only tell lies.  
  
The next time they meet she’s high on drugs and he stops her from injecting more. “That’s going to kill you,” he says to her.  
She replies with the same nonchalance she had first approached him with, “well, obviously” and crookedly smiles like she’s making an inside joke with death that he doesn’t understand.

\--

She might have been a soldier _before_ , she thinks, the way she follows orders no matter what they ask of her.  
She wonders what she’ll do if one day she will have to observe the soldiers’ bedroom like she’s doing now with the politician she doesn't know. She isn't sure what her choice will be, a bullet or a kiss, it’s all the same in the end.  
She takes the rifle out and watches the people across the street from up high.  
The boss had told Aramis she has a unique talent that she shouldn’t waste. She doesn’t.

\--

He smells like gunpowder and whiskey and she can feel the dirt and the horror rage beneath his skin.   
He sometimes grabs her arm, squeezes it a little too tight like the trigger of a gun and shields her body as to protect her from something only he can see.  
When he speaks of it he says _it was a long time ago_ and _over there_ , like it happened in another story, to another man. It reminds her of her own  _before_.  
He's worried that when she came here she did not leave the ashes and war behind, but instead pieces of herself scattered in a nameless forest.

“You never remember, you never have, not once,” he explains.   
She’s tempted to tell him about the deja-vus, the flickers of memories, perhaps even about _before_ , but she doesn’t. Repeats again and again that she doesn’t care, still she returns to him. It kills the time, that’s all.

\--

“God has given up on me a long time ago,” she had told him, but when he’s gone for too long it will be the first time she falls to her knees for a man.  
She tries to remember the prayers the nuns had taught her, but she only recalls  _Vade retro satana, Numquam suade mihi vana.  
_ She tries to ignore the truth behind it.

\--

They have sex, he fucks her against a wall, face buried in her neck as his hips push her back.   
She’s loud in encouraging him, unashamed. He’s quiet solely for the whisper of her name like he’s grateful that she decided to allow him some time with her before she disregards him again. It’s probably true. She considers asking his name, but she doesn’t because of what that might mean.  
  
The first time he came too fast and had fumbled, apologized with a high voice. She had told him she didn’t care. Not out of kindness, but because she simply didn’t.  
She had left him alone in the room and when she returned he wasn’t there anymore.  
She might have been relieved if she would allow herself to feel something, but instead she’s overwhelmed with blind apathy as she tries to stay awake and not close her eyes. She’s afraid she might recognize someone in the images of _before_.  
  
Sometimes he cries, brokenly. His face wet with tears, eyes closed to stop himself from letting go completely.  
She realizes she’s never seen anyone cry like he does, silent tears and short breaths. She’s heard monsieur Treville weep with hard barks and d’Artagnan with hiccups and dramatic screeches, but never like he does, just from being touched.  
She wonders if there are ways to touch him that would heal him too, that won’t break him but replace something, make him better.  
She’s tempted to try but he pushes deeper inside her and she forgets again.

\--  
  
She wishes they were friends this time around. She doesn't understand this yet, but she will.

\--

In her head she calls him the tall Parisian, even though he speaks with a southern accent and it’s she who was born not far from the Sacré coeur. He’s kind, but soft touches have been hardened, edged by war, she responds with unforgiving cruelty hoping he will finally respond with anger and resentment. She wants to scream to him. _Hate me!_  --or was it _forgive me_?  He never does.

He  challenges her to do things she would normally not have the courage for. He’s never drunk, but his words slur like he is.  
 _Come with me_ , he dares her. She considers it silently, her answer’s hidden in the way she presses against him. 

She decides she likes to be with him in places where they do not fit, in a bath, in her American twinbed that was made for half a person and in the world. Limbs intertwining until she doesn’t know which parts are hers and which are his. She can barely recall monsieur Treville’s face.  
She--  
  
His company makes her feel less alone and more than ever and it was never supposed to go like this. Looking for salvation and maybe finding it in each other. He was so beautiful. She wonders why someone like him would want her, but she stays.  
Call it co-dependency, for her it was survival, for him the only way.  
She should have realized that the language of love doesn’t make one honest. She knew it was all a lie, but she’s starting to lose sight of who’s lying.

She thinks she might have loved him  _before_ , but neither of them can recall. She tells herself she doesn’t care anyway, right?   
Right? _Please, just tell me._  
It’s already starting to crumble. She might have cried that night.

\--

In the worst circumstances they would have died together on a field, in a war against a foreign nation they had never heard of.  
In the best circumstances they would have died together in bed grown old and tired with life, ready to try it all again.  
In these circumstances she probably dies by his hand, or by one of the other men, the boss perhaps, she isn’t sure yet, but waits patiently with the knowledge they will have another chance. All she hopes for is that she will find him quicker next time around and that he won’t be the only one remembering.

\--

(she forgets, it's the way it always goes)

 

 


End file.
